So these are some of the pictures from my first attempt with a non-point and shoot. Its a canon XS with a 75-300. The first few are from a WHL game i was at and the last one is my girlfriends dog. Like i said my first try so go easy, but be honest. Thanks all!

What ISO were you shooting, 1600? The hockey photos all have a bit of noise to them. 1 and 3 look to be a tiny bit out of focus too around their heads. What's with the random dog photo? He looks like he could use a sharper focus too. You could try some post production editing to eliminate the noise on the hockey photos, but I imagine the light in the arena doesn't allow for a faster shutter speed and sharper focus.

The hockey images aren't too bad considering it's indoor sports and the EF 75-300 isn't exactly a low-light lens. They are slightly underexposed and there is a white balance issue going on, especially in the 2nd and 3rd shots. The black edge of the first shot...is that from a glass support?

The picture of the dog is underexposed and the color seems desaturated.

I have the same setup. If you are shooting in raw, you might want to max out the exposure on the hockey shots and then correct the color cast. I've taken some that are pretty similar. I'm just a little confused though because you seem to have it pretty well in the first shot.